Woman jailed for slashing her boyfriend’s face with blade

A woman has been jailed after slashing her boyfriend’s face from his mouth to his ear after she caught him kissing and cuddling another woman.

Joylene Cunningham used a blade to slash her boyfriend Sean Harman’s face – resulting in him needing 18 stitches.

The 30-year-old Cunningham had told York Crown Court she thought the slash was caused from a ring or a glass he was holding – but when her ring was examined by Recorder of York, Judge Paul Batty QC, it was found to be blunt.

Cunningham was jailed for two and a half years.

Judge Batty told her: “The wound had been a deep laceration in places, running virtually from Mr Harman’s mouth to his ear and causing a permanent scar.”

Cunningham, of York, said that when she saw him with another girl they were kissing and cuddling.

She added: “I felt pretty upset – I just stormed over and hit him.”

She said she punched him but denied having a blade in her hand, and said the wound must have been caused by a ring on her finger, or the glass he was holding.

Her former boyfriend Mr Harman defended his ex, saying he had been “winding her up” during the incident which happened in York one evening in June 2015.

Mr Harman told the court that he had wrongly believed she had been the one having an affair.

Speaking about his vengeful behaviour, he said: “I was disgusting – I was horrible. I was awful.

“I was angry with her – I thought she had been cheating on me in my own bed. I wanted revenge on her. I wanted her to be sent down.”

Mr Harman had said he had been violent towards Cunningham previously.

He also said the defendant had hit him with her fist but the cut must have been caused by a ring on her finger or a glass he was holding.

But Judge Batty who examined the ring said it was not sharp and he did not believe the pair’s claims.

Kevin Blount, mitigating, said: “She [Cunningham] has no previous conviction for violence, it had been an isolated incident, there was nothing to suggest pre-meditation and there was ‘some degree of remorse.”

Judge Batty said that in sentencing he gave Cunningham credit for a guilty plea to wounding with intent at an earlier hearing.